Episodes of Life
by LaSuen
Summary: A short story on the evolution of the characters' relationship at intervals of several weeks. It starts with the accidental touching and grows to be something more. Lots of fluff ensues. One-shot. Slash.


**Title**: Episodes of Life (Эпизоды жизни)

**Author**: ~Loren

**Translator**: lasuen

**Beta**: bitchinblackframedglasses

**Genre**: fluff, romance

**Pairing**: Sherlock/John

**Rating**: PG-13

**Disclaimer**: We do not own anything, nor do we make any money from this.

**Summary**: Written for a prompt: a short story on the evolution of the characters' relationship at intervals of several weeks or months. It starts with the accidental touching and grows to be something more. Lots of fluff ensues.

**T/N**: I hereby send thanks to the author who gave me permission to translate this beautiful story, and also to my lovely beta.

Enjoy your reading!

* * *

**Episode 1**

"Keep up, John!" Sherlock shouted and for a split second disappeared in a swarm of people.

Panting, John was following the detective while at the same time mentally cursing the criminal who had gotten away with seven consecutive robberies of confectioner's shops in the past week, in particular emptying all their earnings which amounted to quite a sum, what with all the approaching Christmas holidays. He was also internally lashing Scotland Yard's pathetical ineptitude in times when they were unaided by the world's only consulting detective; that coupled with the throng of people which had accumulated due to the rush hour and which kept getting in John's way as he chased the abovementioned perpetrator. To make matters worse, it was also snowing hard all of a sudden, and a thick veil of white flakes whirled right before his eyes, obstructing his vision and putting its two penn'orth in hindering John's attempt to _keep up_.

Shouldering his way through people and throwing apologies right and left, John finally saw the top of Sherlock's head. The detective skidded to a halt for a second. _'Don't let him escape'_ flashed across John's mind, and an instant later Sherlock rushed forward again, lunging in the direction of the underground entrance. John accelerated his pace and ran up to the detective, almost colliding with him, as Sherlock, giving him a curt nod, swiftly whipped something out of his pocket and, holding it up in the air in front of himself, precipitated further inside.

"Follow me," John heard Sherlock call out before dashing after him.

As it turned out, Sherlock had extracted Scotland Yard's badge – the one he had presumably pilfered off Lestrade – to demonstrate it to the underground personnel in lieu of a payment for the tickets. The detective trotted down the escalator, and John followed suit, while in front of them other two people were threading their way to the platform.

"There he is! John, come on!" For a blink of a moment, Sherlock glanced back to make sure his blogger hadn't dropped behind.

One of the two men who were scampering before them down the stairs swerved toward the right platform. At a run, Sherlock, who had managed to catch a better sight of the criminal they were after, flung himself in the same direction. Both Sherlock and John sprang into the carriage a second before the double doors began to close, and thus found themselves in one of the busiest undergrounds in the world during rush hours. In order to fit inside the already crammed carriage and avoid getting gnawed by the doors, John had to practically press himself against the detective's back. The train rumbled off, and the majority of people who had no access to any of the handrails escaped otherwise ineluctable falling simply on account of being propped up by other people who also couldn't reach any kinds of handholds.

Meanwhile, Sherlock was jerking his head around in an attempt to establish the whereabouts of their target. Then, the detective did an abrupt about-face, nearly making John, who was still flattened against him, lose his equilibrium. Now, instead of the detective's coated back, damp from melted snow, John could see the buttoned front of his light-coloured shirt. They stood so close to each other that the doctor had to crane his neck to meet Sherlock's eyes.

"He's here. He's in this carriage," said the taller man, looking down at John, while two droplets, coming from the melted snow in his hair, dripped down his right temple. The train chose this moment to give a violent lurch, and John instinctively lifted his hands when he felt Sherlock's grabbing a hold of him by the elbows.

"We need to get to the other door," the detective instructed.

"And you, sure enough, are going to work your way over there _right now_," John left a sarcastic remark hanging in the air, and Sherlock stared at him with his eyes narrowing.

Someone in the midst of the carriage started to struggle through towards the exit in advance, and a ragged wave of flurry rippled across the infernal gaggle as people tried to change places with one another or bulldoze through someone who hadn't the smallest intention of moving. A lanky man grudgingly stirred to the right, thus dislodging a young girl sideways, most likely a student, who, in her turn, stepped on a prim-looking businessman's foot, a suitcase clutched in his hand, and he, consequently, had to alter his position at the same time grumbling something vaguely menacing under his breath, and so forcing Sherlock to move as well. All of those separately minor transitions led to John's pressing his back against the door and his face almost touching Sherlock's chest. With unparalleled self-control, John was doing his absolute best to treat the situation as a most trivial one, taking a small solace in the fact that it was the rush hour and half the carriage shared his predicament. No, he didn't feel uncomfortable or awkward. Such close proximity was even welcomed, and catching himself at the thought of it John bit hard on his lip, a light blush tinting his face. At that exact moment, Sherlock peered into him but averted his gaze almost at once. John hadn't noticed him noticing.

All the way through the tunnel the detective managed to remain steadily on his feet, appearing somehow considerably less susceptible to the shakings of the train; his hand supported his companion's left elbow. When they began approaching the station, Sherlock increased the grip on John's arm and set to searching for the criminal with his darting eyes.

"Sherlock—" John called. "You do understand the crowd is going to smash us out of the carriage?"

"Sure I do," the detective huffed. "That's exactly what we're going for. The crowd will push him closer to the doors and most probably, just like us, he will be delivered on to the platform."

The train slowly screeched to a stop. Providently, John had turned round and now stood with his face before the door, his back slightly touching his friend's chest. The double doors slid open, and with quite enviable promptness, Sherlock popped out on the platform, threw himself to the right and battled his way to the other doors from where a swarming flock of people poured into the station. From what John saw – or tried to see, for that matter – behind the ubiquitous throng, there happened something similar to this: the criminal had sprinted out of the carriage on the frontline of the crowd and, upon seeing the looming head of his chaser, had whisked back inside, barrelling once more into the train. Right after him, unceremoniously elbowing another portion of commuters who awaited their turn on the platform, barged Sherlock. John followed in tow, resorting to the same tactics, and successfully fought his way in. Making it to the middle of the carriage, both Sherlock and John only had so much time as to see the criminal whooshing out through the other pair of doors, and an instant afterwards an even larger mass of people than previously began to enter. Simultaneously, they both spun around towards the doorway they had just passed, and John had to stifle a groan of disappointment. The throng had already filled all of the free space and the double doors had slid closed.

**Episode 2**

"How? How? How? He obviously went from Brighton to London. From the station he took a bus to the pub where the victim worked, waited for her to have a lunch break, executed his intentions and went back," all of it Sherlock got out in just one breath, and John slanted a sideways look at him from his spot at the table where he sat tapping on his laptop, his face illuminated only by the glow of the screen.

The dusk had already fallen, however the streets seemed even more darkened due to the heavily overcast sky, hanging ominously over the city of London. The room was submerged into thick shades of black and grey, yet neither of the tenants of the apartment in 221B hurried to switch the lights on.

"But if he had to wait for her, why didn't anyone see him there? He wasn't amongst the pub frequenters, for all of them were found and all of them presented what they thought was absolutely precise testimony," Sherlock mused as he kept pacing around the living room, occasionally whirling on his heels to redirect his wearing of the carpet. "He's calculated his entire route, minute by minute. Starting with him leaving his house – in all likelihood a rented room, going by the character of the murder, and besides he must have been spending his time mostly in the Internet without really bothering to earn for his life – and ending with him coming back there after what he presumed was an unsolvable crime." The detective lingered by the mantelpiece and let out a forlorn sigh.

Engrossed in the contents of his laptop, John didn't seem to lend much attention to his flatmate's soliloquy. The living room lapsed into a brief silence. His fingers hovering above the keyboard, John was on the point of answering to someone's comment on his blog when Sherlock was struck by a sudden idea.

"John!"

Inclining his head to one side, John let his hands drop back on the laptop board, while waiting for Sherlock to expand on his new epiphany.

"John, look up the train schedules on the route from Brighton to London. I need the exact time of departure and arrival of all the trains from one to three p.m." Sherlock finished his request already from the kitchen, and the clinking sound of his activities suggested that he was moving some vitreous objects.

"Right," John replied, thinking that blog comments could wait for better times and clicking on the link for the respective website. "The murder was committed yesterday, wasn't it? On Monday?"

"Yes," came a muffled voice from the kitchen, sounding as though the detective had shoved his head into a cupboard.

John sighed. The opened pdf-file offered three pages of elaborate schedules. Skimming his eyes over the lines and columns, John scrolled to where the one p.m. section started.

"There are about eight trains within this time period," John said at last, slightly raising his voice.

"And the first one departs from Brighton at one and four p.m. and arrives at London Bridge at two p.m., correct?" Sherlock still sounded somewhat subdued.

"Erm… What did you want me for if you already know it by memory?"

"It could change seasonally."

"Doesn't your hard drive provide an automatic update?" John mumbled under his breath when Sherlock appeared at the threshold of the kitchen, nursing John's mug between his hands. He let the remark pass.

"Now we need to look up the bus schedule … Route 381, I think. Have you opened it?" Sherlock settled in a chair a little distance away from John.

"Not yet."

"How about now?" Sherlock persisted, drawing his legs up and seating himself more comfortably.

"Hold on a moment, almost," John responded in a quiet tone, and shortly later a window full of numbers sprang onto the screen in front of him.

"Now compare these two schedules and check which buses leave with a three minute time difference. From the station he would have to first walk on foot for some time before reaching a bus stop."

John nodded and was silent for a little while. Behind him, Sherlock took a sip of the recently brewed tea John had prepared for himself, and set the mug on the table before pensively connecting his palms in a praying gesture and staring fixedly into the void. Only the clicking of the mouse was heard in the otherwise undisturbed stillness of the room, accompanied merely by a faint scatter of starting rain behind the windows. With a frown creasing his forehead, Sherlock rose from the chair and came up behind John, looking over his shoulder at the screen.

"Jo-ohn," he drawled.

The other man didn't react, simply continuing to click back and forth between the two windows on his laptop.

"Jo-ohn," Sherlock called again. "Just put the windows next to each other, and you won't have to switch between them every few seconds."

Biting on his lower lip, John pressed the right button and conjured the context menu. When failing to find the desirable option which would permit for two windows to sit next to one another, he began poking about the browser settings. Sherlock scoffed a short laugh, slightly bent forward and placed his hand above John's on the mouse. The doctor cast a stealthy glance at the other man's hand which felt tangibly warmer than his own. With swift, adroit movements of the cursor, the detective found the necessary subsection in the menu and made the two windows display on the screen at the same time.

"So that's how…" John said in an undertone, trailing off, and mentally chided himself for forgetting or for not knowing how it was supposed to be done in the first place.

However, Sherlock apparently wasn't planning to budge his hand off the mouse or, more precisely speaking, off John's hand lying atop of it. He started to move the cursor, helping himself to navigate the tables of schedules while muttering something unintelligible under his breath. John made a feeble attempt to pull his hand from under Sherlock's, but the detective only increased his hold on it, continuing to use the mouse as he stood there, inclining over John's right shoulder. The warmth of Sherlock's hand gradually reached John's and made him wonder that it must have been quite chilly in the apartment and that he probably should do something about it.

Then another thought took root in his mind. He had felt something flutter inside him at that touch. The sensation was a no doubt familiar one to John. It would be there when you carefully embrace someone you like for the first time, or when you peck them on the cheek wishing a goodnight and smile, or… John didn't have time to fully grasp at it as Sherlock, abruptly withdrawing his hand and immediately grabbing his coat instead, briskly commanded, "Let's go, John," and was already halfway exiting.

**Episode 3**

"You're an idiot."

From the lunch onwards the world's only consulting detective and his companion were investigating the mysterious theft of the safe, simultaneously looking for the person responsible. It followed exactly in that precise order, for those who had claimed the theft apparently were much more preoccupied about its contents rather than about the perpetrator.

Having executed a seemingly ceaseless run around the outskirts of London while canvassing apartment after apartment, they found themselves standing next to the office building on one of the streets in the City. According to the security guard's assurances, the building was empty. It was for that same reason that they hadn't been permitted entrance and had to find a roundabout way. The premises were connected with long corridors, flanked by a profusion of doors. They had to search two storeys of the consulting company's property, so they decided to split to save time. It was two working desks of certain employees they were after, and they had no more than ten minutes at their disposal to finish the business, while the sluggish-looking security went out to have its dinner. Trotting along yet another hallway and reading the plaques on the offices, John pushed one of the doors and felt his hand slip at a bad angle, a sharp pain shooting immediately through his carpal and wrist. Stopping for a moment and slightly shaking his hand, John made sure it was nothing serious and continued the search. After a short while, the run came to its logical conclusion, and they found what they were looking for; that is, Sherlock found what he was looking for and passed the new piece of evidence to Scotland Yard.

In taxi, John started to suspect there was something off about the way his hand felt. However, the primary examination he later conducted on his own in Scotland Yard, while Sherlock was explaining to Lestrade the particulars of the case, showed that his hand had been only ever so mildly bruised and it would be fully functional in a matter of days.

When they returned to Baker Street, it was already late in the evening and John trudged to his bedroom minutes after their arrival. A never-ending string of apartments and offices, doors and signs, and then he had had to wait for Sherlock as well – all of it was rather exhausting and kept flashing hither and thither before his tired eyes. He needed to steer his attention elsewhere.

John was half-lying in his bed, a warm quilt tucked up to his shoulders and a book clasped in hands. The room was dimly-lit with a bedside lamp; the poor glowing it provided was only enough to let him read with comfort and then, out of nowhere, vaguely discern Sherlock, who apparently came, said something and now was loitering on his doorstep. In taxi, John had been studiously trying not to betray any indication of periodically appearing ache in his hand, but going by Sherlock's remark about his hand – if John heard it right – his painstaking diligence had been utterly vain. John's eyebrows shot up in question.

"If you think that the Scarecrow with his dream to obtain at least a small amount of brains will divert your attention from the dulling pain in your hand, you're mistaken." Sherlock made a few steps towards the bed and stopped in his tracks.

John, who was holding _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_, a present from his ex-girlfriend which she had given him saying "It's my favourite book, I hope you'll like it too", frowned a bit yet continued to read. _He probably wants a cup of tea, well, I'm sure as hell not fetching it, _he thought to himself.

Sherlock perched on the edge of the bed, half-turned towards John as he fixed him with his scrutinising, unblinking eyes. John tried to ignore him, concentrating instead on the text before him. _Perhaps_ _Sherlock will realise that I have neither time nor any particular desire to hold a vial for him with something explosive or whatever he has thought of this time, and he'll just go away,_ hoped John for a moment.

For several long seconds, Sherlock sat unmoving, and then, quite impudently, fell backwards and landed his head onto the quilt which covered John's stomach.

"Sherlock, what are you—" the doctor was about to ask but then relinquished the idea.

Without any warning, the detective grabbed John's hand and brought it closer to himself. The expression on his face reminded of that of a scientist who peered into the sample vial expecting to find there something he most assuredly knew long ago. Now holding his book only with the left hand, John gaped at him, blankly.

"I need you to have both of your hands functioning, John. This way, you'll be much more efficient." Sherlock was lightly kneading his flatmate's palm with his fingers, pressing from time to time a bit harder in certain spots. "Relax. And don't deflect your attention from the book, otherwise you won't understand the great value of the Golden Cap."

John coughed, quietly, not tearing his eyes off Sherlock.

"What's with the profound knowledge of the Land of Oz? You know nothing about constellations, planets and other, much more—"

"Mummy liked to read it to me and Mycroft. Although, there was no real need in it then. By that time we could read quite well on our own. Mycroft was rather impressed by the political undercurrents intrinsically interwoven in the plot," Sherlock made a dismissive noise, "Unlike me." He continued to knead John's hand, his fingers applying ginger pressure and occasionally moving higher to the doctor's wrist.

John suppressed the urge to ask the details of those alleged political undercurrents found in an innocent children's book and decided to follow Sherlock's advice, resuming his reading. Occasionally, he would steal a few glances at the detective. Not that the situation was making him nervous, yet it rather stuck out amongst the usual flow of events he was accustomed to. The man, who would constantly wake him up in the dead of night playing his violin, who would shamelessly appropriate his things and who would wreak chaos in their living room in a twinkling of an eye; the man, who stored disturbing articles next to the food products, now was carefully massaging his hand, with his head snugly nestled against John's belly. _People will talk_, thought John, by force of habit.

Now, turning a page, John had to first place the book onto the quilt and then use his left hand to thumb to the next page and pick the book up again. The arrangement was a tad irksome, but the pleasant warmth circling along his right hand was completely worth it. A few pages into his reading, John felt he was nodding off, his eyes fluttering shut of their own volition, and he caught himself reading the same sentence over and over again. He put the book aside and, before closing his eyes, glanced at the curly head, still peacefully lying on his stomach. Sherlock, his eyelids half-lowered, kept tracing his fingertips along the back of John's hand.

Almost in the clutches of sleep, John felt something soft, warm, and moist brushing his palm for less than a second. Naturally, he thought he was already dreaming. Sherlock, for his part, with his lips lingering on John's hand, didn't think it was a dream and was fully aware of it actually happening.

In the morning, John found his hand almost as good as new. He poured tea for both of them on his own. One of the mugs he held out to Sherlock using his right hand, as soon as the detective stepped into the kitchen.

"Thanks," John mouthed to him, without making a sound.

Sherlock beamed at him with such a radiant smile as though he had just realised the simplest of things but everyone else would have to still think about it for a while.

John did like the book, in the end. After all, it should do him good to have something else in his life apart from the whole running and chasing agenda, and dead bodies, and medicine, and Sherlock. Although, he half wondered, maybe he wasn't entirely right on that account and it would be even better to have… more of it?

**Episode 4**

A lull stretched in between the cases. Even if there appeared any, worthy of investing his attention, the detective would necessitate only twenty minutes to crack them, that with the fact that eighteen of them were spent on the ride to the crime scene. And just like this, stillness filled the apartment in Baker Street for a while. For what seemed like the umpteenth time, Sherlock had turned the kitchen into a laboratory and had laid out a good part of his chemical library, open on necessary pages, on all possible surfaces in the living room, and it was sprawled on the couch and with his eyes gazing vacantly at the ceiling that John found him as soon as he crossed the threshold. Still with Tesco paper bags in his hands, John sent a doom-laden glare at the back of his flatmate's head and shuffled to the kitchen.

A few minutes prior to him opening the door to the house and halfway through his ascent on the staircase, John had been quietly called by Mrs. Hudson. In her usual restrained manner yet with a graver expression pinned to her face than he'd expect, she had said something along the lines of 'Boys, if you're planning on living here, I'll recommend you to clean up the apartment at least a bit'. John had promised her to deal with the situation and, already fearing that the upstairs would have a much bigger mess in store for him, had entered.

Certainly, from time to time he would clean the apartment, if only the result of his efforts would uphold even for a short while. New books and a whole variety of new multifarious items would occasionally pile up all over again. Dust would cake the shelves and their haphazard contents. John wasn't even sure if some of those things even belonged to Sherlock and weren't the leftovers from the previous tenants, or if the old lumber was merely an issue of décor. And speaking about the kitchen… he wouldn't know where to start. In raptures over some crime-related matters, if only moderately linked to certain chemical and biological processes, Sherlock would make a laboratory out of their cooking premises and cram all the surfaces imaginable, with beakers, phials and test tubes. Although, it was worth noting, the medical paraphernalia would usually vanish just as unpredictably as it would appear.

Arranging the comestibles inside the fridge in places as far from the suspicious-looking liquids and bottled objects as possible, John walked into the living room. He surveyed the floor, the walls, and for some reason the ceiling as well before flicking his gaze back to the books laid out on the carpet, with black-and-white, badly-printed illustrations.

"Sherlock, do you still need these books?" John asked, not looking at his flatmate.

"No."

"Then I can close them and put them away?"

"No."

"Sherlock." Standing by the mantelpiece, John turned to face the detective who was idly lounging on the couch. "Mrs. Hudson asked us to clean up the apartment, and if you don't want her to kick us out of here, tell me," John tried to keep his voice level, "Can I remove those books from the floor and, at least, start cleaning without running the risk of tripping over and falling? Since I will probably die sooner than you decide to be an active part of it."

After a prolonged pause and when John began to suspect that Sherlock wouldn't grace that rebuke with an answer, he finally condescended.

"Yes. Do what you have to do."

Sighing, John hunkered down and set to picking up the books and arranging them in a neat stack. There were at least ten volumes, all having to do with chemistry in one way or another. Finished, he headed to the kitchen, scooped a towel rag and, thinking it would do just fine to fight the dust, returned to the living room.

He started with the writing desk which stood next to the window and discovered that Mrs. Hudson was absolutely right. He could practically see the difference between the part where he had already swept with the rag and where he hadn't, and it was almost like in a TV advert of some cleaning fluids. Arranging the items in a more harmonic order, he stepped to the small bookshelf by the couch. First John wanted to just promptly remove the dust from accessible surfaces, but on second thought he figured that he might as well give it a proper care. He began tugging the books and folders out of the shelves and putting them on a little coffee table instead. Sherlock huffed. John could almost feel the detective watch him from time to time, but he didn't say anything. Besides, he wasn't going to get started again on the whole cleaning conundrum. _'Of course, it's a waste of time, and during physical labour brain would work slower and so forth,'_ thought John, _'and talking about it takes us nowhere'_. He unloaded the shelves, swiftly dusted them and carefully put everything back in place. He swept a rag across the coffee table and then headed to the mantelpiece. The task was the same one. He drew up a chair and began piling up books. While emptying the shelves within his reach, John flickered a glimpse across the backs of the books. There were _The Diary of Jack the Ripper_, Robert Keppel's books and Robert Ressler's volumes dedicated to the study of serial killers; a salient edition of the World's History was tucked in close quarters, and a culinary encyclopaedia also sat there in a frankly baffling proximity.

After finishing with the lower shelves, John discovered he couldn't get to the highest ones. Borrowing a chair in order to help himself seemed downright humiliating. He hadn't done anything of the sort since school times when some of the tall and solidly-built blokes made fun of him because of his height. John was reaching out to get a book, standing on tiptoe, barely making it high enough to brush his fingers against the back, while the book already verged on falling and hitting him on the head.

All of a sudden, a hand snaked around his waist, while another one went to retrieve a book above him. Sherlock, standing behind him in a rather interesting position, seized the volume and passed it to John. Slightly hesitating on account of such unusual and unexpected help, John accepted the book and stationed it on a lower shelf. Meanwhile, Sherlock extracted another volume and repeated the routine. His hand, still entwined around his flatmate's stomach, could not possibly provide him any justifiable support. John sighed and inched away just the tiniest bit. In response, the detective only readjusted his arm and drew him closer. And if before that gesture Sherlock wasn't full-out touching his chest to his flatmate's back, right now he was holding John almost flat against himself. Pulling the last item from the shelf and handing it to John, Sherlock disappeared from behind his back as seamlessly as he had appeared there in the first place. Without uttering a word, he approached the other bookcase, situated to the right from the mantelpiece, and set to removing the upper-shelved books. With a smile to himself and a quiet hem, John was already rearranging books on the lower shelves.

Having sorted it out, Sherlock disappeared in the kitchen and wasn't seen for some time. John, rapt in book-moving and dusting, barely heard the clanking and clattering coming from over there. Returning, Sherlock went to the left bookcase and set to replacing the volumes back onto the upper shelf in the same order they had been arranged before the disturbance. Standing next to the other bookcase, John was wiping one of the folders the moment Sherlock suddenly sidled between him and the shelves.

"Sherlock, you have no concept of good manners, don't you? You could've politely asked me to step aside, you know," John stated.

"And yet you didn't move away," Sherlock parried.

Fair enough. They stood practically back to back and neither of them moved until Sherlock didn't place all the books on a higher and apparently more honourable shelf from the lowest ones while John finished dusting big folders. Was it obstinacy or something else? One thing John Watson knew for certain. When Sherlock touched him, he couldn't help a warm feeling spreading in his chest, a feeling of certainty which Sherlock would convey through his body language. He held himself without a hint of hesitancy, with utmost resolve. The touching came more and more often in the last days, and it could be barely chalked up to coincidence. Perhaps, John, too, could do with a little more confidence of his own.

**Episode 5**

John walked out from the kitchen into the living room and stopped. His flatmate stood in the centre of the room and was regarding him with a look which promised nothing good. John knew what it meant when Sherlock retained that particular expression on his face. He had thought of something.

"Punch me," Sherlock said, stepping closer to John.

"Sorry, what?"

"You need training. I noticed you linger when during our previous case you got attacked by that lunatic. Go ahead, punch me."

"Sherlock, I'm not going to punch you," John replied, a cautious smile playing about his lips.

"All right. Don't strike full-force. It's the accuracy of your movements that counts. Give it a shot."

With his eyes downcast, John considered it for a moment. Then made a non-committal sort of noise.

"Come on," Sherlock urged.

The doctor waited a pause before mumbling an uncertain, "Very well. Okay."

"Well?" Sherlock was as impatient as he always was.

In a swift movement, John raised his right hand in the air attempting to deliver a blow when it was instantly intercepted and clutched behind his back in Sherlock's grasp.

"Not bad," Sherlock praised him in a somewhat indulgent manner before letting go of his hand.

John gave it another try, and again, and once more, and in both cases the detective was one step ahead of him and managed to duck the blow.

"Try not to look in the direction where you're going to hit. You need to disorientate your opponent," Sherlock kept admonishing him, circling counterclockwise around the other man.

As the detective came near his right shoulder, John suddenly turned and with a soldier's precision punched 'his opponent' in the left cheekbone. Sherlock reeled and brought his hand to brush his jaw.

"Well, you asked," was all John could offer.

"I reckon we'd better—" Sherlock was still palpating his jaw with his fingers, "—finish with the punches. Now," he swept his eyes around the living room, "Now try to knock me off my feet."

With that, he went to screech the little coffee table out of the way, making room for more convenient manoeuvres.

"Sherlock, I'm a soldier. I know my way around a fight," John responded with conviction, watching as the detective proceeded to push the armchairs from the fireplace closer to the wall.

"Then you should be aware that even a soldier is supposed to practise sometimes." Halfway through Sherlock's preaching, John in one smooth move leapt towards him and stuck out his right foot, trying to trip him up. Sherlock's reaction was instantaneous: he grabbed John by the elbows, hitched his left foot up and jerked down John's ankle, causing the other man to fall. The moment John was on the point of hitting the floor, Sherlock caught him by the arm, saving the doctor from a foreseeably unfortunate landing.

A few other efforts followed shortly thereafter, one of which proved almost successful. Sherlock nearly fell, but managed to keep his balance at the last second. Amid the living room, lit with natural light through the windows, their fight looked like a children's game; one adult man was excitedly attacking the other one, all of it to the accompaniment of caustic remarks and periodical giggles. John's next endeavour yielded a far greater result when with a precise accuracy his knee hit Sherlock's. However, John miscalculated the weight of his own body and careened forwards, starting to tumble down on the detective. Fortunately, John was in time to stick out his right hand, softening their fall.

An unrestrained laughter rippled through both of them. Sniggering, John was half-lying on Sherlock's chest, his forehead touching the detective's chin. He could hear Sherlock's heart beating with a rapid pace, slightly vibrating under his cheek. In the next minute, John felt Sherlock incline a bit and press his lips to his forehead. It lasted less than a few seconds, and when the fleeting sensation of touch vanished, John propped himself on an elbow and looked at Sherlock. The detective, still with a faint smile on his lips, flicked his gaze from the ceiling down at John. His eyes carried their habitual studying quality, yet there was something imperceptibly new and the expression behind them made John want to smile. The doctor leaned a bit and was practically face to face with his 'opponent'. His face hovered right above Sherlock's when, hesitating, he left a transient kiss on Sherlock's lips. A moment later, he budged closer and planted another one. When he leaned for the third time, the detective looped an arm around his waist and responded, making it last longer. It was a tender, almost chaste touch of lips. Sherlock tasted of apples, the cause of which, half a fruit, lay on the coffee table nearby. John briefly wondered if Sherlock closed his eyes, which for some reason suddenly seemed important. But he thought better of checking it and instead gingerly stroked a hand along Sherlock's chest.

There was a quiet whistle coming from the kitchen, the sound of which kept gaining volume. 'Right, of course, tea,' John recollected suddenly. Pulling away from the detective, he got to his feet and strode quickly into the kitchen. A perfidious whistle had already abated.

"Sherlock, care for a drop of tea?" he shouted from the kitchen. There came a yes, and John fished in the cupboard for two mugs.

A myriad of thoughts kept flashing through his mind as he waited for the tea to infuse. Was it right? What if Sherlock walks away? What if he ruined everything? Yet he returned the kiss, John reminded himself. They were almost out of tea, he thought absent-mindedly. Besides, for the last couple of weeks Sherlock would initiate the contact himself… Attention? Affection? Or did it only seem like that?

All of his worries disintegrated the moment when Sherlock, appearing as though out of nowhere, hugged him from behind and buried his face into his neck, murmuring with his voice hardly above a whisper.

"Stop analysing, John. You're not very good at that anyway."

Then Sherlock turned him round in his embrace, and John found himself wedged between the detective and the table edge.

"Oh, Sherlock, I think—" John slightly winced, gazing up at the detective's face. "I think my punch wasn't at half-strength."

The doctor looked at the growing bruise on Sherlock's left cheek. He reached out to touch it, but retrieved his hand almost immediately when the other man grimaced, clearly not finding it pleasant.

"I'm sor—"

"It's fine, John. I did ask you to punch me, after all."

Silence blanketed the room for a moment, and John licked his lips, unsure of what to say.

"Tea?" Sherlock finally spoke.

"Tea," John nodded in the affirmative, and as soon as the detective stepped away from him, turned to the mugs that sat on the tabletop and smiled at them stupidly.

**Episode 6**

They hadn't been able to get a goodnight's sleep for too much time.

Three nights were passed in a pursuit of a 'slipping killer', as leading London newspapers had baptised the murderer. Yet another hunt was to take place in one of the parks on the outskirts of the city. Sherlock and John arrived there at around eight in the evening and ensconced themselves on one of the benches in the shadow from the faintly shining sun. Neither of them had any particular desire to discuss the case; besides, talking seemed like an uphill task to begin with. Sherlock, who during their ride had assiduously maintained the lively expression of someone who wasn't running the risk of falling asleep at any given minute, now, as he seated himself on the bench, immediately seemed exhausted beyond description, and the only look of him made John feel even drowsier.

The silence was disturbed only by a chirping of birds, faraway honks of cars, and children's yelps from the playground's side, and John let himself relax a bit. He threw his head onto the back of the bench and stared up at the blue sky which filtered through the foliage. Noises gradually slurred and faded away; a refreshing evening air of the woodland park had a calming effect, while he found himself thinking back to the shreds of conversations he had had in the previous days; his thoughts were mingling, and everything ebbed away, remote and subdued.

John thought he had shut his eyes for not more than a minute, yet when he reopened them he had to admit it had been at least three hours. The sky had turned a darker shade of blue and the air carried a more chilly taste. It was the first thing he noticed. The second thing he noticed was the fact that his head lay somewhere on Sherlock's chest, while the detective's left hand rested on his thigh.

"Yes, you fell asleep. Yes, for quite a while, how can you sleep for so long? No, there was no sign of the murderer," Sherlock rattled off in a quiet tone, anticipating the questions. He lifted his left hand to brush it lightly over John's head before he lowered it back to where it was.

For a heartbeat, John's breath caught in his throat. It had been a few days since their kiss after the improvised practice of fighting techniques, and for the most part they had been spent in investigation and separately; John had taken it upon himself to interrogate the witnesses since Sherlock more often would only piss them off rather than acquire calm and structured answers; and Sherlock, in his turn, had been travelling around the city and John hadn't the foggiest idea of what he could have been possibly doing the whole time.

John was on the verge of sitting upright, but thought the better of it. He didn't know whether it was the contrast between Sherlock's warm chest and the cold air, or whether it was the sudden weariness rolling its truck all over him again.

"Have you managed to get at least a little sleep?" John asked, his voice gravelly and roughened.

"No."

In close quarters stood a dimly-glowing streetlight which shed its dusky light across the nearby sidewalk and a path leading further away from it. The power was just about enough to slightly illuminate their bench, too. John straightened, at length, and gazed at Sherlock. The detective retrieved his hand and continued to look somewhere in the thickets of trees that flanked the sidewalk. He appeared haggard and utterly worn-out.

"If you're afraid—"

"I'm not afraid of anything, John."

"If you're afraid you'll fall asleep," insisted John, and Sherlock glowered at him reproachfully, "and miss the murderer, I could take over the watch."

"I'm not going to fall asleep," Sherlock snapped out.

Silence stretched over them for ten minutes. John sat with his elbows propped against his knees and was looking around, cocking his ears to the sounds around them while thinking that streetlamps were scattered rather poorly and offered a rather scarce amount of light. Rubbing a hand over his eyes and taking a deep gulp of air to fill up his lungs, he slumped against the back of the bench. After a minute, he felt something coming to rest on his right shoulder. Sherlock had to sink down and stick his feet out on the ground in order to place his head comfortably onto John's shoulder. With a faint smile on his face, John bit back a sarcastic comment about consulting detectives who required sleep from time to time just like lesser mortals. Sherlock's measured breathing almost lulled John back to sleep; however, he forced himself to stay on alert since he had promised he would.

It was difficult to say how much time had passed. By John's estimate, it could be around a half an hour. All of a sudden, a sharp snap of the branches and an inarticulate muttering speared through the stillness of the park. It made Sherlock jerk immediately awake – to which he would never admit, John thought – and spring to his feet. In a blink of an eye, the detective was already running headlong into the clumps of trees. John followed in Sherlock's wake, struggling his way through the twigs. Sherlock had disappeared somewhere ahead of him, and a thought struck John that he might have lost his bearings and now didn't know where to run.

A verbal altercation erupted from somewhere to his right, in which one of the voices John recognised as Sherlock's while the other one sounded gruff and aggressive. The trunks and branches blocked his vision, and he had to cover another few yards before he would make it there. Out of nowhere, the air was pierced by two shots fired at the interval of a couple of seconds. John instinctively ducked his head and then heard screams of at least five or six people. Rays of light from the torches started to seep through the leaves and shrubbery, and there came shouts "Don't move! Do not move!" and "Lower your gun!". John propelled himself forward and, running out onto a small grove where the vegetation was sparser, saw a man further in the distance whose hands were held behind his back, an officer manhandling him.

The surrounding area was lit only with a few torches, barely enough to help make out another man who sat on the ground with a uniformed officer bending over him. Looking harder at the person's features, the doctor saw that he was of average height, thinly-built and fair-haired, and wasn't Sherlock. A frown suffusing his brow, John glanced around, eyes searching for the detective. He was about to approach Lestrade's squad when Sherlock emerged from the darkness of woods and came up to him. A few cuts and scratches adorned his face, for he must have decided to completely avoid the trouble of drawing back the branches in pursuit of the criminal.

"Are you all right?" John asked, his voice edged with concern. "What was—?"

"I am fine. His hands were trembling so much that the bullet he fired hit the tree instead," Sherlock shrugged it off, nonchalance incarnate. "The second shot was made by a police officer as a warning. The rest of it you can see for yourself."

John exhaled the breath he didn't know he was holding and wiped a hand over his eyes. _How can he talk about that so calmly, when someone just tried to shoot him_, a thought crossed his mind. John's gaze swept across the team of the police officers and he noticed Lestrade looking in their direction.

"We need to talk to the Inspector, and then we're done," Sherlock said slowly, his voice unusually quiet for some reason before he plodded towards the brightly-lit area of the park.

Catching up, John began walking to his right, keeping a short distance between them, and at some point his fingers must have brushed the detective's, or Sherlock must have accidentally touched his hand, and for some time their fingers were interlaced. Before that moment, the only thing John wanted was to make it as fast as possible back home and finally get some sleep, but now all he could think about was never letting go of Sherlock's hand. To stop him from running under the bullets, to stop him putting his life on the line, which seemed a hardly feasible idea. So John kept walking, that impossible man's hand in his own, as he cherished the moment – the criminal had been captured and they had made it alive – before, almost intangibly, they had to break the contact, stepping onto the illuminated sidewalk.

**Episode 7**

The world's only detective and his blogger met Friday morning in one of the sea ports. The case for which Sherlock had woken John up in the wee hours of night turned out to be something utterly unworthy of such a deed. As the detective had told him even before their very first case, the police would occasionally be so out of their depth that they would get lost even in broad daylight.

About ten in the morning, they returned to their apartment. The sun was already up and about, and John settled on the couch in the living room after having picked up a random book from the shelf. He lay sprawled across the couch, which wasn't his custom for he didn't usually like to lie around after he would get up in the morning and even spend some time out in the open. Besides, the spot was almost always occupied by his flatmate. John figured that a little while of horizontal pastime from which he had been ruthlessly plucked at night wouldn't go amiss.

Sherlock sat by the desk near the fireplace methodically tapping on his laptop, distracted from time to time by John's mobile that lay right next to him. The plot of the book John had started reading appeared so engaging he hadn't even noticed Sherlock coming up to the couch. He gave the doctor one of his evaluative looks; John lay with his arm thrown behind his neck. Catching Sherlock's eye, John vaguely wondered whether the detective wanted to make him fetch something or make him go somewhere. He was wrong. John fathomed out Sherlock's intentions when he perched on the edge of the couch and attempted to settle down next to him. John slightly budged to the left, giving him more room on the already limited surface. Sherlock lay on his left side, tucking his head on John's shoulder, who had removed his right arm from behind his head and now tentatively reached it to touch the curly hair.

It had been a few days since that row of sleepless nights during their investigation of the case of the 'slipping killer'. Over the course of them they had managed to solve one small, yet complicated case, not without John's direct assistance for he was the first one to notice the inconsistency between the evidence and a couple of facts mentioned in the case. Also, Sherlock had managed to unobtrusively hug John a few times during that period. The first time he'd done that he'd approached John's chair and wrapped his arms around his neck, a soft breathing just above John's ear, before reaching out to take the mobile the doctor had held in his hand. The second time, he had been showing a collection of photographs pinned to the vast wall in Scotland Yard, when he had grabbed John by the shoulder and led him from one end of the wall to its middle, letting his hand rest where it was before sliding it down John's spine and lingering somewhere at his waist. Thankfully, there hadn't been anyone else in the room. As for the doctor, John only once, when stumbling upon Sherlock in the doorway, had quickly touched his upper arm, saying he was going to go grocery shopping and would be back in no time. He didn't want to rush things up, not entirely knowing whether he didn't want to scare off Sherlock or himself.

Sherlock draped his hand around John, placing it on his waist and leaving it there as he budged closer in order to avoid falling off the couch. John, casting a furtive glance at the detective, continued to read.

"Oh, so hasn't the beast appeared yet?" Sherlock inquired in a low voice, peeking into the book which was open practically at the very beginning.

"Sherlock, ts, don't tell me, I don't remember the plot very well and I've only just started to reread it," John explained, holding William Golding's _Lord of the Flies_ which he had found on the bottom shelf next to the mantelpiece.

"It's—" he began again, yet broke off upon hearing the doctor's half-hearted hissing again.

The second spun out in silence, and the way Sherlock kept looking at John reminded of someone who lay in wait for a perfect opportunity.

"They're—" the detective seemed all too eager to spill the whole kernel of the book out to his flatmate in advance.

"Hush," John shushed him, and Sherlock fell silent as John's fingers started to tug gently at the mop of black curls.

A few minutes ticked by before John felt something lightly touching the bare sliver of skin on his stomach where his sweater had rolled up a little. Sherlock, still looking into the book yet evidently far from actually reading it, was featherly circling his fingertips and then trailedhis fingernails along John's abdomen. The movement was tickling and nice at the same time, and the moment John realised what the source of it was he involuntarily sucked in breath, taking a bigger gulp of air than he needed. Sherlock used it to his advantage and for a fraction of a second slipped his palm higher under the fabric of John's sweater before withdrawing it.

There was a faint, distant buzzing, the origin of which appeared to be much closer than expected; Sherlock's hand moved away from John's stomach as he reached out to dig his mobile out of the pocket of his trousers.

"Hello," Sherlock picked up the call, and John heard a faraway male voice coming from the other end of the line.

"Describe the living room." There followed a barely audible to John stream of information.

"Who's on the photographs?" The detective interrupted the talking person and, upon getting an answer to his question, added, "Check if there's dust behind them."

John, who had stopped his fingers from stroking Sherlock's hair as soon as the telephone had rang, quietly resumed what he'd been doing. Sherlock, his eyes unseeing and most likely visualising the described place, looked at him and quirked the corner of his mouth in response. A warm feeling spread in John's chest. It was the intimacy of the moment and the realisation that Sherlock was speaking with someone on the phone – Lestrade, apparently – while at the same time peacefully lying on his shoulder with John's fingers carding through his hair. His lips were mouthing words as though riffling over the received data; his eyes were wide open, envisioning something in his mind. John shifted a bit closer to the detective and grazed his left hand across his cheekbone, his finger skimming Sherlock's lips. The detective, looking up and meeting John's gaze, quickly kissed his finger and then glanced away, starting to speak into the receiver again.

John licked his lips, waiting for Sherlock to finish the conversation and staring somewhere over his head. Yet the detective, it seemed, wasn't planning on wasting time and, after leaving another request to examine the suspect's bookshelves, leaned down to John's face, his mobile still next to his ear. His gaze scanned John's features until it rested for a moment on his lips and then moved up to his eyes. Leaning down enough to almost touch his mouth to John's, Sherlock stopped and pulled away a bit, looking away and speaking into the phone again.

"Check his study. His desk, the left drawers." With these words, Sherlock leaned towards John again, this time actually kissing him.

John had noticed Sherlock holding his mobile a bit differently, with its lower part as far away from him as possible while the upper part of the receiver stayed close to his ear. Seconds later, Sherlock touched his tongue to John's bottom lip as though asking his permission to deepen their kiss, and John, without the slightest hesitation, let Sherlock know he was entirely supportive of the idea.

For the last couple of days which had passed since their first kiss, John couldn't shrug off the wondering thought of whether Sherlock would be insistent or, on the contrary, soft. Right now, to the doctor's amazement, he managed to be both at the same time.

At one moment he would take over the initiative and proceed the kiss according to his scenario, and the next he would retreat, letting John's tongue in to slide along his own.

John was a bit taken aback when the detective abruptly pulled away. He was about to groan with disappointment but fought the urge as Sherlock gave him a meaningful look.

"Couldn't be any more obvious," Sherlock said into the phone, not even bothering to suppress the growing irritation at his interlocutor's patent slow-wittedness. Then, after a moment's silence, he added, "We'll be there soon."

John chewed on his lip and sadly thought that they would have to leave the couch and postpone their enjoyable pastime until the case would have been dealt with. After finishing the phone call, Sherlock put the mobile aside and, propping himself up on one elbow and hovering above John, touched his lips to his cheek. Then, as though reading John's thoughts, he whispered into his ear:

"Well, I didn't exactly say how soon."

And he leaned down to kiss John once more.

**FIN**

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Drop a review, eh? :) Thank you for reading!


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